Agneepath plays on the aircraft entertainment system, that telling scene of a young Vijay Dinanath Chauhan burning down a petrol pump being a visual allegory of a similar incident perpetrated by the protagonist in Jigra a few moments ago. This is just one instance. Throughout the runtime of Jigra, Amitabh Bachchan pops up as idea and inspiration, set-up and syntax. When Satya (Alia Bhatt), caught in a situation which may end in violence, is gently warned: “Abhi Bachchan nahin bann na hain... sirf bachke nikalna hain”, she rolls up her sleeves and says matter-of-factly: “Ab toh Bachchan hi bann na hain”.
If Bachchan, exactly five decades ago, rose as the Angry Young Man, Jigra marks the arrival of the Angry Young Woman.
Alia, petite and pocket-sized but packing in enough heart and horsepower, marks the advent of the fearless, fierce Bollywood heroine. One who doesn’t need a man to prop her up or to help her, leave alone rescue her. She may be slightly bullheaded and mostly driven by emotion, but she has her eye on the target and she never wavers. She doesn’t use her anger as an impediment, it simmers within her and becomes an angst-powered weapon, often leading to mass destruction.
Jigra is directed by Vasan Bala, the man behind wild and wacky and packed with coolth enterprises like Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Monica, O My Darling. A lot of his style shows up in Jigra, which is also his most sombre film. Jigra is similar in premise to the 1993 Sridevi film Gumraah, which was produced by Yash Johar. His son Karan Johar co-produces Jigra. Gumraah was directed by Mahesh Bhatt, Alia’s father.
Vasan, however, makes Jigra its own unique beast. The emotional beats — the strong sibling bond forms the bedrock of the film — is balanced by stylish, jaw-dropping action, subtle humour and a woman in the middle who can never be put down.
More so because Satya has never let her younger brother Ankur (Vedang Raina hits the correct beats) down. Ever since their father threw himself off the balcony in front of their eyes, she has been the protective elder sister willing to take a punch as well as land a punch for him. So when Ankur, an ambitious coder, finds himself facing the death penalty after being falsely implicated in a drug possession case in the fictional autocratic nation of Hanshi Dao, Satya lands up immediately, determined to get him out at all costs.
Initially playing by the book — consulting lawyers, looking for ways to reverse or at least postpone Ankur’s death by electrocution — Satya finally decides to let go of the rules and do it the way she knows best — through carefully constructed chaos.
Jigra is at its most compelling as a jailbreak thriller. Satya finds allies in “retired gangster” Bhatia (Manoj Pahwa is incredible) and former cop Muthu (Rahul Ravindran), both of whom have loved ones inside the same prison on death row. They draw up an elaborate, if often complicated storm in-and-rescue plan, which is audacious but also tests one’s credulity. When Bhatia asks his accomplices to “simplify” the modus operandi, Muthu tells him: “Masala movie nahin hain. Yeh complicated hain”. That’s Vasan taking a subtle swipe at the masala movie genre. He does embrace it wholeheartedly here, as he has done in his previous films, but in Jigra, matters of the heart and head matter more.
The director — and by extension, bona fide cinephiles in the audience — also have fun with his penchant for hat-tips and Easter eggs. Besides the obvious Bachchan references — Yaari hain imaan mera from Zanjeer, the film that marked the kickoff of Bachchan’s Angry Young Man era, plays out at a crucial point in the climax — there are the names of the characters. The jailer, played by evil relish by Vivek Gomber, is named Hans Raj Landa after Christoph Waltz’s Oscar-winning act as the tyrannical Hans Landa in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. One can barely suppress a chuckle with jail inmates being named after auteurs Wong Kar-wai and Kim Ki-duk. In one scene, Pahwa sports a T-shirt emblazoned with ‘Urf Professor’, his still-unreleased 2001 film. Vasan’s debut film Peddlers, made in 2012, still awaits a release date.
Jigra suffers from an overcooked Half Two and a head-pounding background score in its penultimate moments, but with Alia leading the charge, these are minor aberrations which can be overlooked for the rich cinematic experience that Jigra is. At one point, in the jailbreak scene, she rappels down a roof even as bombs and bullets go off around her. This is truly an actor who can make every ‘mission impossible’ possible.
